NORWALK, Conn. – Norwalk’s pick for a superintendent of schools flatly denies an accusation made by a state blogger and his followers who are inundating news outlets with warnings of impending doom should the Board of Education confirm its selection Tuesday evening.
“I have never cut or gutted any Special Ed programs. I have made them better and expanded the range of placements in every place I have been and every district under state supervision,” Steven Adamowski said.
The question was asked in response to many comments made by Jonathon Pelto, a Connecticut blogger who lives in Manchester, close to Hartford.
“If your have a child with special education needs, I strongly urge you to contact special education advocates in Hartford, New London and Windham or even state-wide advocacy groups. I absolutely assure you that you will find Mr. Adamowski’s record on special education services troubling,” Pelto said in a comment responding to a comment by Norwalk SPEDPartners.
Leaders of Norwalk SPEDPartners said Tuesday that they have put out an open invitation to anyone to provide details of how Adamowski may have negatively affected any special education programs in this state or others. According to the group, no specific negative information has been received. “In this case ‘silence is golden,’” a leader said.
NancyOnNorwalk called two statewide advocacy groups Tuesday but has not gotten any feedback. The person who answered the phone at SpEdConnect, a Hartford based organization formerly known as the Learning Disabilities Association of Connecticut, did not know who Adamowski is, although he served as Hartford Superintendent of Schools from 2007-2011.
Another commenter to NancyOnNorwalk spoke of Adamowski in the harshest terms.
“I can tell you what to expect from […] Adamowski,” R.L. wrote. “You’re going to get a lot of double-speak as choices are reduced under the guise of school choice, as support systems for ELL and Special Education students are decimated, as alternative programs are shut down and the emotionally disturbed students who needed them are reintroduced into the “main stream”, and as you’re old neighborhood schools become crucibles of the most difficult and needy students while the better students in your district are creamed off into charter and magnet schools. Adamowski has NO skills with regard to school improvement. He is a master of the shell game though. Gee, lets take all of the good students from the neighborhood schools and concentrate them into one building. Then you can take credit for creating a successful school. That’s an easy con and it’s easy to see if anyone actually took the time to look. What about the students and the neighborhood schools that are left behind? I work in a left behind school. We are lacking in services, supplies (including textbooks), and discipline. It’s funny how these reformer types work. They concentrate the better students into one place and call it success while leaving the students who actually need support behind. Then they go and blame the teachers for the low functioning of the left behind school. Adamowski and his ilk don’t fix anything. They just sweep what they don’t want people looking at under the rug.”
(Editor’s note: Another commenter has posted on this report links to two stories, one from the Hartford Courant and another from an online source with corroborating links, that point to Special Education violations in Hartford.)
Adamowski, himself the father of a child with a learning disability, on Monday talked of reducing Special Education costs, something former Norwalk Superintendent of Schools Manny Rivera was focused on before departing less than two years after tackling Norwalk’s rough and tumble school system.
Windham had the highest rate of inclusion in Connecticut when he began there as a Special Master, Adamowski said. The rate was 20 percent while the state average was 14 percent, he said.
“That was because the district did not provide a tiered reading and math program, where you had a good core program, you had supplemental support in the classroom and then you had what is called Tier III, which is additional time and support through tutoring, special teachers,” Adamowski said.
That rate was reduced, he said.
“They had over-identification problem, particularly among males of color, so we able to reduce that simply by creating classrooms that were more equipped and responsive to meeting special needs,” Adamowski said.
Norwalk has been jolted by a spike in Special Education costs this year. Norwalk interim Superintendent of Schools James Connelly initially speculated that perhaps some children were identified for out-placements due to programmatic issues. West Rocks Middle School had an abnormally high number of out-placements, Board of Education Chairman Mike Lyons said.
New London had a similar problem when it went into state receivership, Adamowski said. The district was suffering a $2.2 million deficit when he took over as Special Master, with $6 million going “out the door,” he said. The out-placements were reduced, he said.
Under state law, parents must agree to the placement of their children, so if you’re going to offer in-district special education, “You have to have something of equal or better quality to what outside placement would be,” he said.
It’s a long process, he said.
“This takes planning, you have to invest in it,” Adamowski said. “You have to train the folks. My sense is that, systematically, it is exactly the thing that one should do both from a quality standpoint and a financial standpoint. Because it is actually easier for the school district to offer a quality program than an outside placement because there’s no profit factor involved. You’re already paid for your administrative overhead, when you are paying for outside placement you are not only paying the program cost, you are paying the administrative cost for running that program.”
Either the district enlists a partner or it brings in people to train its own staff, he said.
“School districts can be very competitive in this area. I would make this a priority. I don’t approach it as someone as it would be a financial matter,” Adamowski said, emphasizing that the quality of schooling is paramount, “So we are not dealing with an inappropriate level of referral or outplacement, particularly among minority students.”
“In my experience the two areas that which represent the lowest hanging fruit is the behavioral area, those students with behavioral classifications, and certain classes that exist on the autism spectrum, which can be offered by the district,” Adamowski said. “… I would start working on classes where you have a large number of students are out-placed. The two areas where in my experience it is easiest to bring students back is in autism and behavioral area.
“Where it might be one or two students per district, but within their service area there might by six or eight, it would be enough for a program,” Adamowski continued. “I think Norwalk could be helpful in that regard by hosting a program like that which would allow Norwalk students to attend in their own community. So, this is multifaceted issue, there’s not just one response to it or one answer, but taken together I think it can put the district on a path of serving more students who are residents of Norwalk in Norwalk schools. I think that is what this is all about.”
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